Twilley, Rommel & Stephens public accounting firm celebrated its 40th anniversary in November and the staff is looking forward to a promising future.

“I certainly hope the firm will be here another 40 years from now,” said Ed Rommel, one of the founding members.

“It’s hard work but it’s a lot of good luck. When we started, we were fortunate enough to have very good clients and the clients kind of spread the word. And we’ve kept good clients.

“We’ve got probably the best clients of any firm around in that we do the majority of the professionals. We do most of the doctors and dentists and lawyers. And, we have been blessed with a good staff,” Rommel said.

He praised the “good group of people working for us.”

“We pretty much cover everything in the financial world, but it’s different for each client. One client might say, ‘I don‘t want to hire a bookkeeper.  I don’t want to do anything’ and we will take care of everything. We do payroll. We do it all,” he said.

“Many of our clients give us their reports at the end of the period and then we do their tax reports.  We also do a lot of consulting. We do financial statements for a number of businesses. We do different levels of financial statements.  We do compilation, we do review and we do some audit. But we mostly do taxes,” he said.

It’s important for Salisbury to have a business like the public accounting firm, Rommel said, “because it adds credibility to you to deal with us.”

“If I prepare your return and we sign your return, there’s an element of reliability in that we’re not going  to allow you to go too far astray,” he said.

He and Bob Twilley started the business 40 years ago, and for the first few months, used Twilley’s kitchen as their makeshift office. Twilley retired about 10 years ago and moved West.

“Bob Twilley and I worked together for the same CPA firm … We leased 500 square feet on Florida Avenue, then we went to Carroll Street, then downtown and now we’re on Wesley Drive,” he said. The company has a staff of 25.

He is one of four managing partners. The others are Bob Stephens, Cindy Bounds and Jennifer Willing.

Stephens, who’s been with the company 30 years, said  accountants there handle 4,000 tax returns every year, serving individuals as well as businesses and non-profit organizations.

“We pride ourselves in the service we give our clients. We go above and beyond to help our clients every day. We don’t just do taxes and accounting. We do everything for clients that they may need,” Stephens said.

“We make sure they are taken care of as far as nursing care, and old age. We do financial planning for senior citizens, home care and whatever else they may need. We use our contacts to make sure they are taken care of,” he said.

“Small businesses depend on us to help them grow in the community. We have a lot of personal services,” Stephens said.